Novelty buttons traditionally include an image, slogan, or other artwork displayed on a top layer, some of which are covered by a transparent cover, and mounted to a backing plate. Some novelty buttons include a pin member on the back cover, which enables the button to be selectively coupled to an article of clothing, for example. Further, this back cover is typically a non-ferrous material and includes a mechanical pin device for selectively coupling the backing to a clothing item of a wearer.
Other traditional novelty buttons use a man-made magnetic material as a backing layer to support the artwork, image, or slogan. The man-made magnetic material enables the button to be mounted to a metal object, such as a refrigerator or the like. The man-made magnets are typically selected for ease and efficiency in manufacturing. The man-made magnetic material usually is fabricated in a large, flat sheet. An optional adhesive layer may be included. The sheet, then, is cut to the desired dimension and the desired artwork is adhered to the sheet. This results in a very low-cost-to-manufacture novelty button, but often results in inferior quality in terms of both long-term preservation of the artwork incorporated in the novelty button and in the magnetic attraction of the man-made magnet, which degrades remarkably over a short period of time, and further, has a relatively weak magnetic charge to begin with.
Despite the much greater magnetic strength of rare-earth magnets, the current teaching in the art instructs away from using the rare-earth magnet in novelty buttons. Traditional novelty buttons are either of the pin variety or are of the sheet, man-made magnet variety and are not typically made with rare-earth magnets. Rare-earth magnets are difficult to assemble into novelty buttons. In part this difficulty is because the magnetic properties of rare-earth magnets make traditional (hand or machine) assembly difficult due to both the ferrous nature of the back cover commonly used and that the press and die sets used to assemble the cover and back cover are steel. Thus, there is an ever-difficult problem of inserting a magnet between the outer layers (front and back covers).
Moreover, traditionally, a labor-intensive, manual operation is used to insert a magnet. In other known instances, a synthetic magnet having an adhesive backing is used to adhere the magnetic material to an exterior face of one of the outer layers. Both these methods are undesirable for aesthetic, cost, quality, and efficiency reasons. Further, man-made magnets do not have the same magnetic density as rare-earth magnets; this results in inferior magnetic attraction between the novelty button and the desired mounting surface (i.e., refrigerator or locker).
Most common in this art and more traditional, novelty buttons include a pin assembly in lieu of a magnet. The pin assembly arranges on the exterior side of the back (or bottom or rear) cover (a back face of the backing plate) using well known-in-the-art methods and configurations. A pin-equipped novelty button typically does not include a magnet (man-made or rare-earth): Instead, the pin button simply attaches to an article of clothing of the wearer, as would be well understood by those skilled in this art.
The prior art has overcome many difficulties in assembling a pin to the back cover of a novelty button. In contrast, however, the assembly of a magnetic material to a novelty button creates its own problems. Because of the nature of magnetic material, assembling magnets to novelty buttons is problematic as the magnetic material magnetically attracts individual magnets to one-another. And, the magnets are also attracted to the steel used in the die tools, assembly presses, and to the steel or other ferrous materials used in the manufacturing process. To overcome these problems, the prior art instructs using man-made magnets—such as the ceramic or flexible magnets—which come in the form of a large sheet with one side pre-assembled with an adhesive and a protective sheet. The large sheet is then cut to size and a hand assembly operation removes the protective sheet from the individual-cut magnet, and then adheres that individual magnet to the exterior back surface of the novelty button after final assembly of the front cover to the back cover and after the artwork is applied to the front cover. This hand-assembly operation is costly, inefficient, and creates variability on the placement of the magnet to the visible back surface of the novelty button, which results in poor-quality. Further, the relative low-magnetic force of the man-made magnet is less desirable. This prior-art approach further requires that the novelty button be already assembled, as the magnet material interferes with the pressing operation used to assemble the standard components of the novelty button. Thus, there remains a need for a method and device that allows a magnetic material to be assembled between the front and back covers during assembly.
To better appreciate the teaching in the prior art of assembling a novelty button, U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,019 issued on Nov. 10, 1981 to Roebuck describes a die-set combination for making pin-back badges. The entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set out herein.
Automating this process has also been described in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,843 issued on Oct. 6, 1989 to Wendt et al. describes an automatic badge-making machine. Yet another apparatus for manufacturing buttons is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,038,944 issued on Mar. 21, 2000 to Braunberger. And another device, a two-stroke machine for making buttons having coplanar shell flanges, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,938,518 issued on Sep. 6, 2005 to Braunberger. And, U.S. Pat. No. 7,509,891 issued Mar. 31, 2009 to Myake et al. describes a button-making device, a button, and a method of mounting a pressing mold in the button-making device. The entire disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set out herein.
Yet another illustrative example of the known art includes a “Two-Stroke Machine for Making Buttons Having Coplanar Shell Flanges” as described by Braunberger in U.S. Pat. No. 6,938,518. The entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set out herein.
Other known and relevant prior art references are fully disclosed in the accompanying information disclosure statement and each reference cited therein is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set out herein.
Each of the aforementioned devices does not contemplate incorporating a permanent magnet in a novelty button. More specifically, there has yet been a viable solution to introduce a magnet, such as a rare-earth (permanent) magnet between the front and back covers during assembly of the components used to make a novelty button. Accordingly, the unique issues arising from assembly a permanent magnet on an interior portion of a novelty button have not been addressed, contemplated, nor solved by the known art.
Therefore, there remains a need for a system, device, and method that more efficiently enables the insertion of a rare-earth magnet on an interior portion of a novelty button.